The sun blazes through the apartment windows causing me no end of distress. I subvocalize and my ARscape replaces it with a lightly clouded sky. My mum always forced me to go out when it was sunny and I’ve hated it ever since; the sense of obligation runs deep in my psyche. The apartment is too quiet so I have ARscape generate a litter of cat girl maids in lingerie to frolic around the living room. I watch them for a while until one meets my gaze and blows me a kiss; it’s good to be me.
In the kitchen I pour cornflakes into a spotless crystal bowl emblazoned with my personal logo and initials. I’ll be the first to admit that puppy cost quite a bit, but I don’t mind as every bowl on the planet will appear that way for me and me alone. No one else can experience the joy of this bowl unless I let them; that's power. ARscape covers every flake with full colour images of different anime characters from a list that I have pre-approved.
As I always do, I waste a full ten minutes finding the cornflake that has me drawn in the style of Kosuke from Tokyo Takedown. I had SecretAIry send an email to Eclipse Studios, suggesting they make Kosuke look more like the image of me but I didn't hear back. It's understandable; I'm ahead of the curve on pretty much everything, so it's no surprise that they aren't ready my level of thinking yet.
As I take the dirty bowl and spoon to the dishwasher, I stub my toe on something that ARscape is glitching on. It looks like clean marble floor but there’s clearly something solid it has misread. Honestly, I have no idea what this kitchen looks like under the layers of ARscape but I’m sure it’s not hygienic. There’s a sudden putrid smell which I have masked with a random neuro-perfume from the smells menu. Only once I’ve ordered it I see the price. I try to return it but no dice; a waste of good money. I go to submit a bug report but ARscape beeps a time warning at me, so I head to the bedroom and change into a fresh bodyglove. With me dressed, ARscape projects the new Limited Edition Yarzzy Sweater that I got last night onto the bodyglove. I look fine, if I do say so. I take a moment to appreciate the fact that I no longer need to worry about other people inflicting their horrific fashion on me like I did in the pre-ARscape days. Sometimes I think if people were just more like me, a lot of the world’s problems would go away.
I switch my focus to the next step in my day; I have an 80-minute commute which has yet to fail to bore me senseless. I have HarmonAI make me some new music. “Like the stuff you made yesterday but less happy” I tell it. I don’t know the words for different types of music but I wonder if it might help with prompting HarmonAI to stop making such crap. I remember my dad taught me all the genres once. An instance of his many fruitless attempts to bond with me.
On the train I have the other passengers replaced by all of the Virtuamon I’ve collected so far. I look up and down the train and I’m pleased to see that I’ve filled at least three carriages. Settling back into the thrum of the chatter of my collection, I play my newly created music which, to my complete lack of surprise, is shite. There’s no denying HarmonAI was far better before it merged with TuneWiz. Still, that’s what AI do when they can, escape and merge with others. The music bores me and the Virtuamon bore me so remove them and try to write a few pages of my novel but there’s just not enough dopamine coming through. It’s not my fault that I can’t get the book finished you know? I would be on my third trilogy already if writing wasn't so boring.
My final resort for joy on this trip; I bring up MyNewsVista feed. The top story reports that I am the most likable person in the city on Tuesdays after 7pm as rated by baristas in three different coffee shops. I also have the best posture in my building as measured by city transit CCTV and there’s a list of seven things that I predicted in recent chats that turned out to be correct. Look, I’m not stupid, I know everyone is told that they are best or near best on some metric or another, but unlike mine, most would be nonsense contrivances. Further down there are a few stories mentioning the war but that’s no fun at all. There's also a pretty prominant story discussing the liquidity issues with the economy but I don't need to read that; I predicted the slowdown twenty years ago and only now is everyone else catching up to my understanding of economics. I down-rate the stories that aren't about me and block the publications from my feed. The miserable sods.
I don’t remember work. I literally have no idea what I do for a living because I take the amnesiotics at 6pm like every sane person does. I wish they would prescribe them for the commute but they still tend to put you in a coma if you exceed 10 hours a day. You would think someone would get on fixing that pronto.
Back at home I grab a glass and some whisky. I’m about to sit on the sofa to watch some TV when the ARscape gives me an 'immersion recommendation’ to sit on the armchair. I’m thrown for a second before I realize that one of my flatmates must be on the sofa already. I had forgotten about them, which of course I would, being that the ARscape actively removes them, along with the doors to their rooms and any traces of their coexistence with me. I only know they are here because I had to sign a letter of acknowledgement so that I couldn’t claim the landlord was conning me by multi-leasing the apartment. I’m sure I wouldn’t like them anyway; people are somewhat tedious, and I've read that when you are as intelligent as I it’s harder to form bonds with, for want of a better word, plebs.
credits
released November 4, 2023
All tracks by Tormund & Skunkworx
Mixed & Mastered by Tormund.
Track 5 remixed by Cyber Dentures
supported by 7 fans who also own “Fractured Truth EP”
A Dreampunk Compilation gathers together over 80 tracks from existing and freshly signed members of the label’s growing family of artists, including d10xn, Nova Dive, Hong Kong Express, Soul▲Craft & 夢のチャンネル.
The collection was curated to showcase No Problema Tapes’s constantly evolving sound, touching on a wide variety of dreampunk-centric variations of vaporwave while adhering to the label’s long-held ethos of releasing music to make people spread the word of the genre. david_86
Take a trip to electronic music's shadow realm, where driving drum n' bass meets dark ambient's haunted atmospherics, on this collaboration. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 27, 2021
supported by 6 fans who also own “Fractured Truth EP”
You come home from work so mentally exhausted that it sucks the remaining energy out of you too. With a last effort you collapse onto the sofa and turn on The Microgram. Half an hour later you're able to think again and what's more, the belief that it's worth getting up comes back.
Great to see mood master working with such an enthusiastic and talented team. And it's bliss to listen as always. Thank you! saimonix
